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posted by janrinok on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the price-of-democracy dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In the heat of a late September day in Mozambique, southern Africa, we started filming a meeting of young charity volunteers. They had poured heart and soul into an ambitious project aimed at combating HIV and spreading a message about contraception in the province of Gaza.

Then, out of the blue, and as our cameras rolled, came an unexpected announcement: the volunteers' work was to end because of a new policy from the United States.

Under US President Donald Trump's "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" policy, any foreign aid organisation that wants US funds cannot "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in foreign countries".

Sebastiao Muthisse from AMODEFA, the Mozambican Association for Family Development, outlined the dilemma the aid organisation faced. They were not prepared to sign Trump's so-called 'global gag rule 'forbidding mention of abortion, and, as a result, projects had to close. For the youngsters it appeared to make no sense. Surely lack of advice on family planning would lead to unwanted pregnancies? Why should they be censored when it came to speaking about abortion?

AMODEFA, a member association of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has worked in Mozambique since 1989. Now, the stance both organisations have taken on the Trump rule means they face losing millions of dollars in US aid, and for AMODEFA in Mozambique two-thirds of their total budget, a sum of $2m.

It's led to hard decisions, particularly when it comes to critical work on HIV prevention.

In a suburb of the capital Maputo, we met Palmira Tembe. Members of Palmira's family have died; five grandchildren are now dependent on her, along with her 13 year-old-son Nelson.

AMODEFA has received funds to help people like Palmira disclose to their families that they have HIV, and to support their care. Palmira told us that prior to the charity's involvement she couldn't tell her son Nelson why he was sick. Now both take HIV medicine together.

We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have – they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status. In a country where it's estimated that up to 13 percent of people aged between 15 and 49 live with HIV, the support of organisations like AMODEFA can be a lifeline. But the work AMODEFA does with families like Palmira's is under threat, due to their refusal to sign up to the Trump policy.

Project leader Dr Marcelo Kantu is concerned about the future. "We will have generations that are sick without knowing what they have - they will run the risk of transmitting HIV to other people because they do not know their HIV status," he told us.

Visiting those supported by charity work in Mozambique, there was a recurring question: With the heavy price organisations could pay for defying the new US policy, why not forget about the abortion issue, sign up to the Trump rule, and keep American aid money?

Activists and charity workers told us it was not only about upholding a principle of choice, it was about free speech and a law introduced in Mozambique to save lives.

Mozambique liberalised its law on abortion in 2014, not least due to the high numbers of maternal deaths from illegal terminations. Since then, abortion is a legal option up until 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in cases of rape or incest during the first 16 weeks.

But there is Mozambique's new law on the one hand, and the Trump policy on the other.

janrinok writes:

It has long been understood that aid donations are sometimes an integral part of foreign policy; aid can be given in the hope that the recipient will favour the donor further along the line, perhaps with trade agreements or regional political support.

But is this a case of the donor wanting to influence a law that has been passed by a democratically elected government? Should aid be used as a way of dictating 'democracy' to follow the donor's views rather than allowing each democratic nation to evolve into the nation that its own citizens want?


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:04PM (13 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:04PM (#607790) Journal

    You can push your car off a cliff, and what kind of prison sentence will you get? 5 years tops?

    Do that with a baby and you're looking at life in prison or the death penalty.

    #LegalizeFourthTrimesterAbortion

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  • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)

    by SanityCheck (5190) on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:26PM (#607800)

    If you push a baby off the cliff you better hope the authorities find you before I do.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:54PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:54PM (#607825)

    #LegalizeFourtieth [imdb.com]TrimesterAbortion

    There. FTFY.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @12:28AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @12:28AM (#607847)

      Legalize up to 18th birthday abortion... "But we prefer to abort babies a little earlier on."

      There, fixed that for you!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @12:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @12:44AM (#607851)

        Legalize up to 18th birthday abortion... "But we prefer to abort babies a little earlier on."

        There, fixed that for you!

        Please convert units to trimesters so the Supreme Court may rule on it.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by KiloByte on Saturday December 09 2017, @11:49PM (7 children)

    by KiloByte (375) on Saturday December 09 2017, @11:49PM (#607840)

    Do that with a baby and you're looking at life in prison or the death penalty.

    Except that we're talking about a fetus, not a baby.

    That's not a person, merely something that could turn into a person. For those who conflate these concepts, let's extend their logic: a nocturnal emission destroys a potential person. Thus, you should avoid that, and rape someone instead. Ie, by refusing to rape, you commit murder. How does this sound?

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    • (Score: 2, Informative) by JustNiz on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:23AM (4 children)

      by JustNiz (1573) on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:23AM (#607879)

      >> Except that we're talking about a fetus, not a baby.

      you do realise the only differnece between a fetus and a baby is the act of being born, i.e. symantics.
      If you can show me how passing through a vagina or being surgincally removed of the womb causes significant physical or mental development of the baby in any significant way then maybe I'll agree with you.

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @05:08AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @05:08AM (#607905)

        So, babies just pop into existence fully formed right after conception and just hang out for 9 months?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:54AM (1 child)

        by Arik (4543) on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:54AM (#607918) Journal
        "you do realise the only differnece between a fetus and a baby is the act of being born"

        You do realise the only difference between a living human adult and a rotting corpse is the act of being killed?

        "i.e. symantics."

        I believe you mean semantics. And that's not a rebuttal.

        One of the most dangerous, not to mention bone-headedly stupid, memes in existence is the 'only semantics' meme. Semantics is vitally important, if you want to actually understand things, instead of merely obfuscating them.
        --
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        • (Score: 3, Funny) by chromas on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:48PM

          by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:48PM (#608070) Journal

          He meant Symantec. He's saying the difference between being alive and dead is like the difference between a clean Windows install and one with Norton AV.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:58PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:58PM (#608030) Journal

        you do realise the only differnece between a fetus and a baby is the act of being born, i.e. symantics.

        Words have meaning. A fetus covers a range of development from a single fertilized egg cell up to the baby just prior to birth. The immense difference is that a baby is by semantics already surviving outside the womb. There is no such guarantee for a fetus which starts way too undeveloped to survive outside the womb.

        If you can show me how passing through a vagina or being surgincally removed of the womb causes significant physical or mental development of the baby in any significant way then maybe I'll agree with you.

        If the fetus is not sufficiently developed, removal from the womb causes death.

    • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:32PM (1 child)

      by Whoever (4524) on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:32PM (#608062) Journal

      It think that you will find that the part of the bible that these evangelicals love (Leviticus, to be precise, they love parts of it) already has instructions relating to nighttime emissions.

      • (Score: 2) by chromas on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:53PM

        by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 10 2017, @09:53PM (#608071) Journal

        They should focus on Numbers, which gives instruction for performing abortions (but only for suspected cheating wives).